How NWB Bank built a robust foundation with Pega and BPM Company

Frenk van der Vliet, CCO at NWB Bank

Frenk van der Vliet has been with NWB Bank for 14 years and currently serves as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this role, he is responsible for both the lending activities to Dutch public-sector organizations and the funding side on international capital markets. In addition, his teams are involved in first-line risk management, including credit analyses and Customer Due Diligence (CCD).

 

“We were facing an enormous challenge”

Frenk: “NWB Bank has never suffered a credit loss in its entire history. That is unprecedented in the international banking world. This is because we have an extremely secure customer base; the creditworthiness of clients from the Dutch public sector is excellent.
Due to our unique position as a public-sector bank, we were, until a few years ago, not required by regulators to comply with all Know Your Customer (KYC) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) obligations that commercial banks had to meet. After all, when your customers are primarily governmental bodies, money laundering is generally not a major concern. However, at a certain point, regulators decided to align these requirements for all financial institutions. That meant NWB Bank had to comply as well. We were given a very short timeframe to demonstrate compliance.
We asked ourselves: how are we going to manage this for 1,000 customers? Around that time, several other banks were being fined for shortcomings in their CDD processes, so there was tremendous pressure. It soon became clear to us that we needed a supporting system.”

 

The search for the right partner

“Because I am responsible for lending activities at the executive level, I am also involved in first-line risk management. CDD is part of that. At the time, we did not yet have a clear view of how to structure this process. We hired a consultant to guide us: what was required, what options existed, and which parties could support us?
Soon, additional requirements surfaced. A fellow executive responsible for operations was also looking for a solution. We were dealing with two major challenges: CDD on the one hand, and workflow management for the operational process—from the first phone call to the actual disbursement—on the other. In both areas, extensive automation and digitalization could significantly improve the process.
The assessment identified Pega as the preferred solution. We then engaged with several Pega partners and visited various organizations to determine which local implementation partner would best suit us. BPM Company emerged as the clear choice.
The fact that BPM Company is a Dutch firm with Dutch-speaking consultants certainly influenced our decision. It makes communication much easier, especially since their team regularly works on-site at our offices.”

 

An ambitious implementation under time pressure

“We took a big approach right from the start. We didn’t really have a choice—there was a lot that needed to change, and the time pressure was immense. Two teams were working simultaneously: one focused on workflow automation and the other on the client lifecycle component.
Especially in the early stages, this required significant effort. A great deal of coordination was needed. BPM Company and our team worked very closely together during this period. There was daily interaction on the work floor between our staff and BPM Company’s consultants, but there was also extensive alignment at the management level.
This collaboration paid off. The close cooperation created strong mutual understanding and clarity about the steps that needed to be taken. It also gave our executive teams greater control and oversight of the process.”

 

Concrete results: from manual to robust

“We are now using Pega for far more purposes than we initially anticipated. Over time, many additional requirements emerged, and we managed to deliver on all of them. We now have a system we can continue to build on, and user satisfaction is already strong.
In the banking world, everything revolves around controls and the strength of those controls. NWB Bank is no exception—we face significant operational risks because we work with extremely large sums of money. Even a small mistake can lead to substantial financial consequences. We therefore needed enforceable controls: the four-eyes checks we previously relied on had to be embedded into the workflows. Within the client lifecycle component, many of these controls were already standard functionality in Pega—even ones we had not yet considered ourselves. Now, those controls are enforced by the system.
Furthermore, a substantial amount of manual work has been eliminated. Transactions used to require extensive manual processing, but that has now been automated. In addition, several back-office tasks have shifted to the front office, which makes the process more efficient and reduces the risk of input errors.”

 

Improved customer service

“We are now able to serve our customers more effectively. You don’t want to go back to clients because something went wrong. Rework on transactions is something you want to avoid. Many of our smaller customers take out only one or two loans per year, so when they do engage with us, the transaction simply has to be right the first time.
Pega plays a crucial role in this. The robustness of our processes has improved significantly—and hopefully, customer satisfaction has as well. The best banks are steady and predictable; that’s what investors appreciate most. With Pega, our processes have become more solid and consistent, and the risk of errors is much lower than before.
We serve safe customers, and we want to be—and remain—a safe bank. This enables us to secure more favorable terms when raising capital on international markets. That gives us a direct competitive advantage and is essential to our business model.
Finally, Pega also helps us demonstrate compliance to the regulator.”

 

The future: from change to run

“BPM Company played a crucial role during the implementation. Now, we are transitioning from the ‘change’ phase to the ‘run’ phase. We want to further develop our in-house expertise, and BPM Company can and wants to support us in this, including through their Academy.
Our workflow management and client lifecycle management implementations have reached a certain level of maturity, so we will need less external support in those areas going forward. However, there are still other bank-wide topics that we could consider implementing in Pega—for example, vendor management or our customer portal. It would be a logical next step to explore handling those in Pega as well.”

 

New opportunities: AI and automation

“Another topic we are exploring—and one we have already discussed with BPM Company—is AI.
At NWB Bank, we deal with a great deal of repetitive work, which is exactly the type of activity where AI can add value. We are currently testing its application in areas such as CDD and credit analysis.
This allows our staff to focus more on forward-looking projections and less on reviewing historical results. Let AI handle the retrospection—extracting data from reports, calculating ratios, and similar tasks—so our people can focus on work that is more valuable and more enjoyable.”

 

A strategic knowledge partner for NWB Bank

“We zien BPM Company als een kennispartner. We hadden geen kennis op dit vlak en werken altijd al graag met een flexibele schil. De samenwerking met BPM Company sluit dus goed aan bij de manier waarop wij al gewend waren te werken.
Het prettigst aan de samenwerking met BPM Company vind ik de hands-on mentaliteit. We kunnen heel makkelijk schakelen. We hebben als belangrijke klant een one-call-relationship met hen. Als de nood aan de man is, wordt er direct geacteerd. We zijn belangrijk voor BPM Company en zij zijn belangrijk voor ons.
Wat begon als een acute compliance-uitdaging is dus uitgegroeid tot een strategisch partnerschap dat NWB Bank heeft geholpen in de continue ontwikkeling naar een nog robuustere, efficiëntere organisatie.”